This page has reader feedback from users of Apple's iWork. (I don't yet own a copy of iWork, so I can't personally comment on it.)

Pages 1.0.2 and Keynote 2.0.2 updates released: (5/26/2005)

Pages 1.0.2 (28.1MB)
"Addresses isolated issues that may have affected reliability for some customers and resolves an issue related to deleting complete pages."

Keynote 2.0.2
(22MB)
"Addresses isolated issues that may have affected reliability for some
customers"

Pages 1.0.1 and Keynote 2.0.1 updates: (3/17/2005) Stewart sent a note that Apple has released updates to Pages and Keynote via Software Update. They're not yet at Apple's downloads page but I found them at the usual software update sources for those that want to download the updaters.

Apple Keynote 2.0.1
Version 2.0.1 fixes issues where reliability may have been poor in certain isolated issues.

Apple Pages - 1.0.1
Addresses isolated issues that may have affected reliability for some
customers and resolves an issue related to deleting complete pages.

Reader Reports: (most recent first)
(I welcome other iWork user feedback. Please include Pages/Keynote/OS version used in reports as well as printer used if you see any print problems. Thanks.)

(added 8/14/2006)
"This software does not read word 5 files.
This does not compete with "office", even though
many of us would like to have an alternative.
If one's prior work becomes invisible, that is
neither helpful nor professional.
-Rod L."

Although it's not practical for a large number of files, if you own Word you could try converting the file to a format
iWork/Pages recognizes. (I never bought iWork as I already have more capable equivalent apps already.)

(added 6/21/2005)"
Pages trouble and possible workaround:
I had some weird problems with pages and printing myself but I found
a workaround for my problems. Select print and then preview. The
Preview app will open with a PDF of the doc. If this seems to look
ok select print from Preview's Menue and my printing-problems were
gone... weird but true
-Goetz N.
(I asked if he was using Pages 1.0.2 and for printer info (just for the record - please include that
info in reports. Saves us both time in back and forth mails).-Mike)
Yes, I am using Pages 1.0.2. And my printer is a HP Deskjet 5600.
My Problem was that a the content of one layer was also covering a
different layer, but very distorted. Using printing from Preview
solved the problem (for now).
"

The last reader to report the printing problem (below) later wrote he wasn't
using Pages 1.0.2 originally and reported the update seemed to have
helped (based on a small test print).

(added 6/20/2005 - see below for updated comments)
"re: Pages shadow printing (in reply to some older reports below)
I have the same problem with printing. I printed a 100 page document
and any page with more than one graphic it seemed to chose one of the
photos and duplicate it over all the others. Very frustrating. I didn't
try getting rid of the shadows.
After printing out the 100 pages, trying to reprint the failed pages and then just printing the missing
photos and gluing them over the ones that weren't right i wasn't in the
mood for researching the problem and had to hand the assignment in.
I'm using OS 10.3.9, 1.25 GB of RAM and HP pcs1315 printer.

I also hit another interesting bug when I was doing a storyboard for a
short film and one of the images wouldn't paste where I wanted it. I
saved the document, twice, restarted the computer and found I had 20
pages of the last page. Everything else was completely gone.
-Fiona J.
(I asked if he was using the latest version of Pages (1.0.2) to date.)
Hi Mike
After visiting your site I downloaded the Pages update. I printed something last
night that was fine, but it was a small document with at most two graphics per page.
But, fingers crossed!
Thanks, Fiona
"

I asked if he tests for longer doc printing to report back if all is OK.

(NOTE: reports below were from before Pages 1.0.2/Keynote 2.0.2 updates were released.)

Pages in Tiger: (I don't own iWork/Pages to test this but see his updated
comments.)

(added 5/6/2005)"Pages and Tiger but no dictionary....
It's funny how quickly we come to depend on something that we lived without for
so long. In my case? The dictionary and thesaurus built into Tiger. It works in
Textedit and safari like a charm but in Pages which I do use it is missing.
Pages appears to ignore, much to my annoyance.
Haven't seen this reported elsewhere... Tell the world and maybe they will fix
it one day soon.
thanks, James
(he later wrote)
I dropped a line the other day about Pages not having a dictionary in
Tiger the way other cocoa apps do. Well, there was an update in software
update a few days ago that fixed that... Since you don't have
Pages you wouldn't have picked it up, but it doesn't seem like many people
did decide to purchase iWorks at this stage so it hasn't been reported.
Maybe this is breaking news? (-;
James S
"

I asked James if he's referring to the Pages 1.0.1 update mentioned
here and on the news page back on March 17th. (See above update listings.)
I usually include all Apple software updates in the news page (and try to
remember to add them to reports pages like this.)

(added 2/18/2005)
"I too had installed iWork via an administrative account. It has since
requested re-entry of the license code at each launch. I solved this
problem by doing an online registration. (I believe from the help menu;
the option has since disappeared) During the original install, a
network glitch had left the computer disconnected from the internet,
and I had bypassed online registration.
-Andy W.
"

More on Pages/Object Shadow Printing: (in reply to an earlier report below. I asked if Pages Help includes any support/contact info to report this to Apple.)

(added 2/18/2005)
"Add me to the list of disappointed Pages users. I have an HP PSC 2210
all-in-one which normally gives me no trouble, even with fairly complex
documents, but it won't print a Pages photocollage containing multiple
pictures with shadows. Thinks and thinks and thinks but never prints.
What use is a page layout program that can't print a document with
multiple photos?
-Peter Blier
"

Another HP printer user reporting problems with printed object shadows and also includes comments on toolbar icons/functions (in reply to an earlier report below noting a similar problem)

(added 2/18/2005)
"Pages prints drop shadows on my HP DeskJet 970ce printer at the exact
opposite angle as it shows up on screen (shadow to the lower left on
screen prints to the upper right of the object or type).

I have the same experience with the Print toolbar icon...stays grayed
out so you can't use it. However, the "T" Text icon in the toolbar
does work. It's actually not a "text edit" icon, but it creates a new
text box, but you have to click the cursor outside the margins (to
deselect everything) in order to use it.

Contrary to what that post said, the font control is not Font Book.
It's the regular OS X font control window as in TextEdit.app.

For most work, you can keep the Colors, Inspector, and Font palettes
open at once in a nice rectangular configuration (it would be nice if
they just snapped into place as in Photoshop), and have just about all
the controls you'd need open and at hand. Of course, it helps to have a
20+" monitor for that if you have side-by-side pages. Otherwise, you're
better off with pages stacked so you can keep the palettes open to the
side. It would be nice to be able to have them slide out of the way for
people with smaller monitors or so you can keep other things visible.
Rick K.
"

(added 2/18/2005)
"I have a different problem to Max R. when printing complex objects to a
HP LaserJet 4500N. The document prints (drop shadows and all) until I
put an image under the other elements on the page. It then fails to
print at all. There is a PostScript error of some kind. Exporting the
doc to a PDF and printing from Preview produces the same results.
Printing from Acrobat Reader 6 however produces a printed page, but
minus the soft drop shadows. If the background image is above the other
items on the page, there is no problem. The main issue seems to be drop
shadows falling on other objects. OS X 10.3.8
AJB
"

The first report here on printing problems was from a Postscript printer user also. He mentioned the problem was
related to object opacity and others could not duplicate it (although they were not using postscript printers).

More on Toolbar Icon/Functions: (In reply to a previous reporrt below. One of the above reports on shadow printing also has some toolbar comments)

(added 2/18/2005)
"To Ricco: (see older report below-Mike)
I can't seem to use the printer icon in the toolbar either. But the
Text icon does work, however in an odd way;
If you are just typing in the middle of the page, then the text icon is
grayed out. However if you select an object (picture, table, etc.), the
icon is selectable and lets you add text.
Obviously this needs a fix. But it does work.
-Michael S.
"

(added 2/17/2005 from 2/15 mail)
"I've noticed that in Pages - when you have multiple objects (images in this case) and put drop shadows on them - when the printout finally arrives - it duplicates one image randomly in the places where other images should be. all looks fine on screen of course! Remove the shadow and the images come back. No idea why - but it is definitely a bug.
I'm using 10.3.8 with 1GB of RAM and a normally rock solid HP Deskjet 5500.
Max R.
IradX Ltd, UK."

I don't own Pages but if anyone else sees this let me know (include your printer model used also.)

Frustrated Users:

(added 2/18/2005)
"How can they call Pages a page layout program when it does not support
the basic "Booklet" printing features. Did Apple get this application
"OUT BEFORE IT'S TIME". We think so, without many of the missing parts
needed for a good program.
John
Processor - 1.47GHz Power PC G4
Memory - 640 MB
Printer - NEC 1800 PS
"

(added 2/18/2005)
"TWIMC:
I to am very frustrated with Pages. It just does NOT work. I have a G4
450 MP Gigabit ethernet computer, with a GIG of ram. Pages is SLOW SLOW
SLOOOOOOOW. Typing on it is the most frustrating and painful thing I
can imagine. I bought Pages thinking that it would let me build a
quick NewsLetter for a Group that I am trying to start and it JUST DOES
NOT WORK!!! Sure I can drop some text in the text locations but if
you Delete text to type text into the text field the text field will
disappear and the page will adjust so that the text field is gone. And
if you try typing in it will grab the text "style" of the next block
above the one that you wanted to enter into. The only way I have found
to get things back to the way that they were from where you started is
to undo undo undo undo undo. WHAT A PAIN IN THE ASS!!!!!! Apple what a
piece of *&&^^$# software this is.
Sure you can drop a pic in now and
then but if you want to create a new pic location it fills out the
page and you loose all the formatting that you had with a usually HUGE
pic. There is no scaling and no way to move the pic around inside the
"graphic window" to get it centered the way that you want it. I know
that I a very new user. I have NOT done any HTML coding or WWW Page layout but I have to say this software that does not quite do any thing
well and in an inexplicable way its behavior is as slow as Cold
molasses, slow makes for a very frustrating user experience.
I have done only two ONE page designs sucessfully but when I have tried to work with more pages when the text runs out of a block it creates a page after with out any formating. Sure there will be those that say dummy, what did you expect, but I was hoping that the Formating options would be a bit better orgainized so that for those like myself that have NOT done any serious text document formatting could have a LOGICAL and smooth ramp up of skills that made sense. Sorry
Apple this software does not cut it.
BEING a long time MAC user, since 1989..., I have never seen such a
cobbled together piece of software that runs so slowly on such a good
computer, I love my mac and this is the first time I have been so
frustrated since it was purchased 3 years ago. WE NEED a REV 2 on
Pages FAST before the world finds out what a piece of crap this thing
is. I have yet to try keynote as I do not see a need to do any
presentations but I could easily be building LOTS OF NEWSLETTERS but
NOT with PAGES !!!!

On a scale of one to ten this gets a MINUS FIFTEEN!!!!!!
My two cents worth and warning to all.
This gets a MAJOR DO NOT BUY, try it on a friends computer first to
see just how bad it is.
Jan Swesey
Washington State.
I am so pissed I want you to know who I am.
NONE OF THIS ANON POSTING for me!!!!!"

(added 2/17/2005)
"I've been trying to use pages for the last couple of days and I'm
greatly disappointed in it! I'm actually outraged that apple would release such a terrible piece of... software! were is the font control? ..it's in the font-book! How stupid is that?!?! Why can't they put it in the actual window you type in?
Then there is the customizable tool bar, what a joke! I place the
printer icon there and it never lets me print, same with the "T" (text
edit) icon, whats the point of having them?
Oh and don't even get me started on the missing thesaurus and
dictionary!
The more I use it the more I hate it! I'm a teacher, so working on word
processors is a big part of my job. I want something that will work
fast and the way I want it to work. I never thought I'd hear myself say
this... but Microsoft Word is a superior word processor.
If you just want to play with ready made templates then this program is
for you, but if you have to work quickly on blank documents avoid this software.
~Ricco
"

(added 2/10/2005 from 2/8 mail)
"I've recently installed iWork from an administrative account without a
hitch. However whenever I launch Pages from my user account a dialogue
box appears asking for the license code. Since I suspected that this
was a privileges problem I've run repair permissions both before and
after install but this has not corrected the problem.
I've also looked for a solution at Apple -> Support -> Discussions -> iWork '05 but have found nothing.
Paul C.
"

I'd guess there's some license file (or prefs/apps support file) that's installed in the user's folder that installed it. (Don't own iWork here to check but if anyone has a suggestion let me know.)

More on Spellchecker/Language (see earlier posts below also)

(added 2/8/2004)
"Go to System Preferences (the light switch). Then International. Then Language. If the language you want isn't visible go to Edit. Position the language you want at the top of the list. Pages and Keynote will use that language when you call up the dictionary. Not a perfect solution, but quite adequate unless you use more words than Shakespeare did.
Lord L.
"

Pages (template) Manager:

(added 2/3/2005)
"Hi Mike,
Many reviews of Pages have noted the lack of a page management system,
a huge handicap if one wishes to use Pages as a page layout
application. This feature does exist, it's just well hidden.
To find the page manager goto Format-->Advanced-->Manage Pages.The drop down window will allow you to move and delete individual pages. It's not as elegant as the Slide Viewer in Keynote, but it works. There does seem to be a problem when you add pages from a blank document (I only see one page even though I've added three text pages). It appears that the Page Manager will only work with pages added as part of a template.
I'll keep looking into this and let you know if I find anything else.
Tison C.
Apple Campus Rep (UVa)
"

"
I tried the Advanced>Manage Pages feature explained in the hint you
posted. As far as I can tell, the only thing it does is allow you to
change the order or delete template pages in the list you access to add
pages to a document. You can't actually rearrange, add or delete pages
in your document from that window. (Tison noted above that "It appears that the Page Manager will only work with pages added as part of a template. "-Mike) I tried it several times and all the
pages in my document stayed exactly where they were before, and it
didn't give me any option to add or insert a page into the document. It
seems like a misnomer to call it Manage Pages. It really should be
Manage Template Pages. I still see no way of rearranging the order of
pages in the document or inserting a page template other than those
that fit within the original template style you selected to start your
document. My Pages or Manage Pages or Insert Pages menus don't even
include Blank as an option.
-Rick K.
"

If anyone has any info on getting around this limitation, let me know.

Another report on using Appleworks' standalone equation editor:

(added 2/2/2005)
"Hi, I too looked for a solution to equation editing in Pages. The best way I have found is the equation editor that comes with Appleworks (look through your Appleworks directory for it). It is a standalone editor identical to the one that comes with Office. (a previous report below also mentioned this-Mike) I placed it in my dock next to pages (I use a lot of equations in my work!) and open it when I need it, after that it is just a simple case of copy and paste from one app to the other. The equations appear as an image in Pages which is resizeable without any loss of quality.
I haven't found any problems with Pages, no crashing, no printing problems and it runs great (considerably better than Office '04) on my 800Mhz G3 iBook.
Cheers,Ian
"

In reply to the slow printing issue from the first Pages
report here (bottom of page) which others could not reproduce. (I suspected it may be because of his printer, although he did not
mention having that problem in other apps)

(added 2/2/2005)
"The printing problem related on your site for Pages is not specific to
pages, but to PostScript printers and opacity. PostScript does not
support opacity in the way described, so the application is forced to
render a bitmap to pre-compute the opacity. Some drawing packages
(Freehand I believe) a while back bragged about their handling of
opacity and PostScript. They isolated where the opaque sections were
and attempted to handle them with separate geometry. This works for
uniform transparent colors, but not transparent images. This is a case
where a dumb printer attached to the CPU rather than a smart printer
using its own CPU is better.
Michael
"

(added 2/1/2005)
"According to the Swiss Website www.cuk.ch, it is possible to use
equations with Pages. There are, in fact, 2 possibilities :

(added 1/31/2005)
"Mike, I have a G4 AGP Power Mac with a Sonnet 1 GHZ G4 processor card and 1.5GB RAM (100MHz bus). I also have a TI Powerbook with 1 GHz G4 and 1 GB RAM (133 bus). I have been playing with pages for the last week, I am very impressed with it, however, I have one bone to pick with Apple on it.

If I save as Pages, I cannot open the document with Word or AppleWorks.
I have to export the Pages document as a Word document (the same
process if I want Powerpoint to open a Keynote document). Outside of
that, I have no other problems w/Pages. (I'm not surprised that native Pages docs are not recognized by previous apps like Word and Appleworks.-Mike)

I do like the additional effects in KeyNote (2) and I'll be using them in training preparation.
Joe B.
"

(added 1/31/2005)
"I also have no problems at all with printing from Pages. (the first report (bottom of page here) noted very slow printing, etc. depending on object opacity - but a later report noted he could not duplicate that problem. Not sure if that user's printer was also a factor.-Mike) The family newsletter template (as well as everything else I have printed so far) prints quickly and perfectly from both my Epson stylus Photo 820 and my
Brother MFC 4800 b&w laser printer.
Mac OS X 10.3.7 on a FW800 MDD dual G4, latest Epson and Brother OS X
print drivers.
Joseph S.
"

More on Pages Spellchecker Language:

(added 1/31/2005)
"I cannot understand what Douglas D (Apple) means (27 January) about the
More setting under Text Inspector allowing a dictionary to be set for
spell-checking a document! (see below - also see another reader's comments on that subject just below that one-Mike)
He could be right if you are creating a NEW document but with an
EXISTING document which was CREATED with the dictionary set to English,
when one tries to spell check the entire document with the British
English dictionary, it immediately auto-reverts to the English
dictionary and DOES NOT check for British English spelling. Either we
are talking at cross purposes or I am misunderstanding what he is
saying. If I am correct, this is a major bug in Pages. There are also
missing features like fixed line spacing which really ought to be in
place. I want to like Pages but these two small quirks seem to make it
unsuitable for my type of American to British localization work.
-Robert H.
(he later wrote)
It suddenly struck me what might be happening with the Dictionary
setting in Pages that I have mentioned in two previous emails to
you--Pages takes its Dictionary settings from the International setting
in System Preferences! I was running this in English and not British
English so the Pages dictionary was always auto-reverting to the
English setting. I just changed to the British English setting in
International under System Preferences and now the Pages dictionary has
changed to British English! I wonder if this is documented in the huge
manual (RTFM)--have to look. It seems a bit of a quirky behaviour but
maybe Pages and Keynote are relying heavily on OS level functions.
"

(added 1/28/2005)
"I was expecting a more complete set of writing tools from Apple. I have
been using AppleWorks for years to write technical documents in
electrical engineering. The equation editor (borrowed from MathType) in
AppleWorks is essential to the technically minded community.

I certainly hope that future iterations of Pages will correct this
overlook. In the mean time I'll have to stick with the aging but still
bearable version of AppleWorks.
Thanks for letting me express my deception.
Yvan L.
"

A reader replied to this post:

"
With regard to the comment about Pages not supporting the AppleWorks
Equation Editor, why not just run it stand alone and copy & paste into
Pages?
-Simon R.
"

Tips on Spellchecker/Language:
(in reply to earlier reports that the spellchecker language selection was limited to the document's language setting.)

(added 1/27/2005)
"The "More" pane of the text inspector allows the language to be set
for all or a portion of the text.
Douglas D.
(Apple)
"

(added 1/27/2005)
"I have more on the Spelling checker behaviour:
It is REALLY odd, but once you learn how it works, you
realize there's a kind of logic behind it. Once you begin
a paragraph, a new linked text box, you can choose a
language for it. You can do it within the Inspector.
It is not necessarily the language of the whole document,
and it CAN be "All". In the inspector you can change the
language for the box, paragraph, or even of a single word.
If I select one single word and change its dictionary to
"all" in the inspector, I can can then spell check it using
the multilingual dictionary or any of the other dictionaries
installed in the system.

The *real* bug is that the localised versions of some templates seem to be in English, and it is difficult to change. So there is a feature at work here, which is extremely powerful, but difficult to understand
easily, a bit cumbersome to use. It is a bit un-apple...
I guess that apple should just relax the behaviour of the
spelling checker a bit and fix the templates.
Roberto
"

(added 1/27/2005)
"There's been some quick takes and generalized references to Pages and whether it offers Mellel users anything; I suspect most Mellel users selected it for its strong support of non-English language processing and are not interested in switching to a program not designed for that end. However, some Mellel people may be like me, WP junkies, and curious about whether to enlarge the software collection. For those people, these observations

What about Pages? I write, mainly, so desktop publishing per se you can read about elsewhere, but here are pleasing (to me) features; keep in mind, all I ever wanted from a WP is reliability, simplicity, tables, columns, smart quotes, and paragraph styles.

tables and columns are very easy and reliable (i.e., no changes on save)

with both section & layout breaks, you can shift column layout midpage or not

smart quotes (now, more than Hoefler!)

Styles/templates are easy to create by varying from your normal paragraph style & creating new style from your cumulative changes; styles drawer shows them (a click applies, a control-click lets you redefine style from cursor location or revert to original style)

styles allow widow/orphan, keep with next, new page, keep lines together; styles can be embedded in your own templates & one can open automatically with every NEW FILE, or you can import styles from another document.

hyphenate/ligatures or not, by document or by paragraph

tabs adjustable by ruler line or Inspector; alignment, leaders, etc

paragraph indents include first line, left, and right

text flow around objects works well (& objects can include text boxes)

bookmarks! templates! (which save in template format into which you can pack everything you like for your documents, including starting style, different layout for subsequent pages, and, obviously, whatever character and paragraph traits you like)

works reasonably well as outliner with customizable bullets, and ordered lists that include Harvard, legal, and numbered; keyboard increase/decrease indent but triple-click move for points though with auto-renumbering (rather than moving by button or heading)

TOC has basic functionality

These Interface features please me:

rulers are there or not, Inspector and other such panels close/open as you wish

styles can be triggered from side drawer or from toolbar popup

toolbar customizable with many options

if you do intricate indents & bulleted lists, be nimble with how Pages will remember your manual indents when you shift back to “normal” or "body" from list formats

Bottom line?
The following kinds of Mellel (http://www.redlers.com/) users won't be happy: those who like its Outline for large document management (rather than clicking to Bookmarks), its RTL language support (I haven't explored this in Pages), its open type, or its auto-numbering details for TOC, its basic bibliography function, its brushed metal, or its keyboard shortcuts for styles. Pages might appeal to those who like columns, widow/orphan & keep-with paragraph styles, flow around graphics & text boxes, bookmarks, toolbar, aqua, outline lists.

The following kinds of Nisus Express users won't be happy: those who heavily use the integrated thesaurus, who like Charles's exquisite slide out customizable formatting drawer(s), the ease of making tables look the way you want, keyboard shortcuts to styles, quickfix for typos. Pages might appeal to those who need landscape columns to survive saving, who'd like a rubust interaction between text and graphics, good import of Word and Appleworks, bookmark functions, outlining.
Robert S.
"

More on SpellChecker Language Selection Limits:

(in reply to earlier reports below - but also see later
posts above for a related tip)

(added 1/27/2005)
"OK, I have figured out the dictionary/spelling bug in Pages.
It seems that if a new document is created in English (More under
Inspector), the spelling dictionary can only be English. Trying to set
it to British English is immediately flipped back to English.
The same is true for a new document set in British English; the
spelling dictionary is fixed at British English and any attempt to set
English reverts back to British English.

This should not be a big problem for most users but I do editing of
American English manuscripts into British English. This means that I
can't run the British English spellchecker to find and change American
spellings to British. I am not sure if this is a bug or a feature but
whatever it is, it's a PITA.
Hope Apple decides to fix/change it.
-Robert H.
"

(added 1/25/2005 - revised)
"I am using Mac OS X 10.3.7, and iWork (Pages 1.0).
When I try to change the language of the spelling checker, it does not
allow to select other languages than english. If I select another
language, or the multilingual dictionary, and then I try to spellcheck again, it justswitches back to english: The popup menu in the spell check panel changes from, say, "Multilingual" or "German" back to "English".
Other than that, the english language spellchecker works (and it works well).
Roberto
"

See the later report above on why this happens (if document is created in English, then spellcheck is limited to english.)

(added 1/25/2005 - in reply to the
1/24/2005 reader report on printing problems with
objects with opacity less than 100%)
"Mike,
I'm having no problems printing from Pages. I tried printing a complex page (the Johnson Family Newsletter) and it started printing immediately and took the normal time to print on my Canon i950 (about 10 seconds or so). The printed page looks perfect. This is with a Dual 2.0 G5 with 10.3.7.
Bruce
"

A later report (below) from Bill said he could not duplicate the problem David say either. (Wonder if it's printer related also

(added 1/25/2005 - in reply to the
earlier report below on printing problems with objects that have less than 100% opacity)
"Reader should file a bug at bugreporter.apple.com and attach the
document that causes the anomaly. If you could put me in contact with
the reader, I would assist them. I tried to reproduce on my copy of
Pages (for filing a bug) and was unable to.
Cheers, Bill
"

Pages Printing Problems/Cause:
(from the 1/25/2005 news page - see the above report for a
note from another reader that can't repeat this problem)

"
I didn't see a user comment area for iWork so just in case you were interested here are some comments about Pages.

I used Word X/2004 for basic letters, tables, lists, etc. and have found Pages imports everything I've ever used with no problem (again, these aren't very complicated documents). Everything works well and it's very simple and easy to use. The design philosophy differences between Apple and Microsoft are SO evident it's really interesting.

With my limited experience so far I've noticed one anomaly. Pages takes forever to print... A simple one page bullet list with a graphic header (the entire file with the graphic header embedded is 250K) takes 3 minutes to print from a Dual 2.5GHz G5 to a LaserWriter 16/600 PS (with 24mb), and all the text is antialiased with artifacts visible around the text. If I make a PDF using Acrobat 7 Professional, even the PDF looks awful, and it's enormous (376K). If I export the PDF from Pages or use "make pdf" from the print dialog the text looks fine and I have a small file (96K). This small PDF still prints with the poor text with artifacts however, and still takes 3 minutes to print.
-David
(he later wrote)
... I just found out what causes this problem. If you have an object
on your page and change the opacity to something other than 100% this
problem occurs. Example: If you have a black line on your page and you
want to make it 50% gray, doing so with the "opacity" slider introduces
this problem. If you change the actual color to 50% gray, the problem
is solved and printing looks great again.
"

Another reader said he could not duplicate this problem (see 1/25/2005 dated report above).
I welcome other feedback on iWork (Pages or Keynote 2).